“The Sultan of Brunei cars”
The Sultan of Brunei (also known as Hassanal Bolkiah) is legendary for his car collection. It’s a huge collection of supercars, regular production cars painted in different colors, and a lot of one-off custom productions from the likes of Porsche, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, and other high-end manufactures. Rumor has it that the Sultan saw Dauer’s prototype car #1 on display at either the Dubai or Singapore car show in the early nineties and ordered a few on the spot. In the end, a total of five Dauer 962 Le Mans cars were ordered and shipped to Brunei where they remain today. All five of these have been verified to be in the Sultan’s collection from photos that have leaked out on the Internet here and there. There is also a database of all of the Sultan’s cars that has been released and the five Dauer cars’ VIN numbers have been confirmed on that list as well. The leaked photos match what is known regarding each VIN. Here are the five:
Brunei plate: BP962 VIN: TP99620175 962-175
Dauer built two race cars for the 1991 Daytona race, both featuring unique bodywork that incorporated a large rear wing. The bodywork was produced by the Arrows F1 team, and both cars only raced once, only with this new bodywork, and were retired after this one race. Dubbed a “grudge match of racing”, the two Dauer cars were driven by two racing families the Andretti’s, and the Unsers. Andretti’s team consisted of Mario, Michael, and Jeff Andretti, and the Unser team was stocked with Al, Al jr, Bobby and Robby Unser. This car, chassis 962-175 was painted white for Daytona, and retired during the race when Robby Unser suffered an accident shortly after 1 AM.
The car was subsequently repaired and turned into a Dauer 962 Le Mans that was sold to the Sultan. The car was painted red, and had a red and black interior, and was featured in quite a few of Dauer’s press photos before being shipped off to Brunei.
Porsche 962-175 as raced at Daytona with the Unser clan at the wheel.
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-175 rear view
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-175 front view
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-175 front view with Jochen Dauer
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-175 as seen in the Sultan of Brunei’s garage
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-175 as seen in the Sultan of Brunei’s garage
Brunei plate: KF9911 VIN: TP99620172 962-172
The sister car to 175, the 962-172 car was built upon the other chassis that ran at Daytona (driven by the Andretti team). This car did in fact finish the race 5
th at Daytona, however it was not able to finish the race due to overheating. The car was subsequently converted into a Dauer 962 Le Mans road car following the race, and painted black with a black interior.
Interesting footnote: With the bankruptcy sale of Dauer Racing GmbH, the black Dauer bodywork that ran on 962-172 at Daytona came into the hands of Group C LTD in the UK, where it was rebuilt into an entirely new race car. This car was built on a spare fully carbon chassis that was designed and built for the Schuppan race and street cars. So, if you see this one in vintage racing, it’s the genuine bodywork that was built on a carbon Schuppan tub.
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-172 front view with doors open and engine lid raised.
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-172 as seen in the Sultan of Brunei’s garage.
Dauer 962 Le Mans 962-172 road testing
Porsche 962-172 as raced by the Andretti team at Daytona 1991.